Drug market in 'disarray' as Silk Road proteges pulled from dark web

Illegal drug sales in online markets have been seriously disrupted since three of the largest dark web marketplaces were taken down in the past few weeks, say experts.

"Right now [online drug markets] are in disarray," said Eileen Ormsby, author of two books about the dark web. "Everybody is running around and not really sure what’s going on."

A former commercial lawyer, Eileen Ormsby wrote <i>Silk Road</i>, a book about the original dark web marketplace. Louie Douvis

The annual independent Global Drug Survey has shown a growing portion of drug users are buying from the dark web – a section of the internet accessible only by using software that maintains a user's anonymity.

"Australia is the highest per-capita user of the dark-web markets, mainly because of our geographic isolation," Ms Ormsby said.

Last month the world's largest dark-web platform, Dream Market, was abandoned by its vendors and their customers after site administrators said it would move operations to another dark web site.

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The suspicious circumstances surrounding the announcement created concerns the site had been compromised by law enforcement agencies and was being used to collect information on its users.

Then in the first week of May, two other sites on the dark web were taken down by European law enforcement authorities: Silkkitie and the world's second largest platform, Wall Street Market, which had 1.15 million buyers and 5400 vendors.

Ms Ormsby, a former commercial lawyer, said that while law enforcement are not openly behind the Dream Market announcement, there is doubt among buyers and sellers.

"It’s not unknown for law enforcement to run markets as honey-pots after they take them down for a little while, just to get some information about people that are using them."

The recent reprisals by law enforcement had created more concerns after operators of Deepdotweb, a "clearweb" site, had also been arrested, Ms Ormsby said.

Deepdotweb was hosted on the open internet and published news about the dark web. The site was seized by authorities because it contained links to and advertising for dark web sites.

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Continuing to grow

Associate professor James Martin, criminology discipline convenor at Swinburne University, said that, as with any legal market, trust was critical to the online drug trade.

Dr Martin has been researching the online drug trade since 2012 and, along with collaborators, has recently finished interviewing a series of dark-web dealers.

Not only have buyers and sellers been on edge about sites under the control of authorities, Dr Martin said there was a constant threat of marketplace sites closing down in an "exit scam", where site administrators disappear with all payments held on behalf of sellers.

The online trade in drugs and other blackmarket goods first rose to prominence with the original dark web marketplace, Silk Road. That site was taken down after its founder, American Ross Ulbricht (also known as Dread Pirate Roberts), was arrested in 2013.

Since then the online trade has continued to grow, and Australian consumers have been among the world's most devout.

"If you look at the Global Drug Survey since Silk Road started, every year more and more people respond that they’re buying their drugs on the dark web so it has become a much more popular way to buy drugs," Ms Ormsby said.

The fear that websites may be under the control of authorities stems from 2017 when a joint operation by European and US law enforcement took down two dark web marketplaces, AlphaBay and Hansa.

AlphaBay, which was the largest market at the time, was said to have facilitated trade in over $US 1 billion of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and other illicit products. Then after authorities took the site down in June 2017, users flocked to Hansa.

What users didn't know was that Hansa had been covertly taken over by authorities and for a month law enforcement ran the site and collected intelligence on its users.

But while recent events may have caused a significant disruption and delivered a blow to the trust that underpins these markets, both Dr Martin and Ms Ormsby said, inevitably, there will be another market to which buyers and sellers will be able to turn.